Very briefly - the study claims that at the local level, roughly seven times as many Democrats as Republicans are investigated, based on media reports. Among Federal and state-wide office holders (Congressman, Senators, Governors), the split is roughly 50/50.

The authors (and their fans!) know this is bad, even though they collect no comparable figures for previous Administrations and even though the big cities were newspapers and Federal prosecutors are based are emphatically not controlled by Democrats and Republicans in anything like a 50/50 ratio. And to compound the confusion, Pat at Stubborn Facts noted the absence of some Republicans from the data set - Dick Cheney was not the subject of Fitzgerald's investigation, for example, public perceptions notwithstanding.

... although it is junk social science, it is partisan
junk social science, so it will surely retain its audience. And we
thank Paul Krugman, who popularized it with his mention in a column
last week.

The latest flurry of attention was sparked by Andrew Sullivan, no stats jockey he, and picked up by Chris Suellentrop of the NY Times blog "The Opinionator".

As to the partisan proclivities of professors Cragan and Shields - their "study" was published at "E Pluribus Media", a push-back outlet created by some Daily Kos regulars.

For another glimpse of their partisan leanings, here is their deck of cards depicting the most incompetent and corrupt Republicans. From their intro:

We thank the many participants in our Corruption and Incompetence in American Politics Project. If you are an elected official, politician, canvasser, campaign supporter, advisor, block Captain, County Committee member, or just the neighbor next door, don’t leave home without the Republican ‘Culture of Corruption and Incompetence’ Card Deck.

Fine, so they are partisan activists. Not that there is anything wrong with that! But please don't expect me to take this flawed partisan study as anything other than the hack-attack it is.

The press coverage on the possible beatification of Pope John Paul II is fascinating. Here is the AFP:

A French nun at the center of the Vatican case for beatifying Pope John Paul II prepared Thursday to step into the limelight after nearly two years of secrecy.

The
nun, Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre, 45, a nurse in a Paris maternity
clinic, has testified to the Vatican that she was miraculously cured of
Parkinson’s disease after praying to the late pope.

...Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre is to hold a news conference in
Aix-en-Provence on Friday, before traveling to Rome. There, she is to
take part in the process that will culminate with the beatification of
the pope, which would put him on the first step to sainthood.

A
yearlong Vatican investigation was completed last week into the
testimony provided by the nun, who had suffered from Parkinson’s
disease since 2001.

...The French daily Le Figaro, which spoke to some co-workers at the clinic, described her as a “dynamic and discreet little nun.”

The
newspaper quoted excerpts of her testimony in which she described how
in April 2005, her health had deteriorated, and she was being “ravaged
by the disease week after week.”

“I felt myself weakening day after day, and I could not write,” she said, adding, “If I did, it was barely legible.”

After
the death of John Paul that month, her congregation began to pray to
the late pope — who also suffered from Parkinson’s disease, a
degenerative disorder with no known cure — to intercede.

In June,
Sister Marie-Simon-Pierre asked to be relieved of her duties but was
told by her mother superior to stay the course and to write the name
John Paul II on a piece of paper. The words were illegible.

Later
that evening, she retired to her room and said she “felt compelled to
write as if someone were telling me, ‘Pick up your pen and write.’ ”

“The writing was clearly legible,” she said. That night, she recalled waking up “stunned that I had been able to sleep.”

“My body was no longer in pain.”

She attended Mass that morning and said that after emerging from church, “I was convinced that I was cured.”

Sister
Marie-Simon-Pierre ended treatment, and on June 7, a neurologist who
had been treating her for the past four years told her that “all
indications” of the disease had disappeared.

At the end of 2006, she left Puyricard for Paris. where she joined the team of nurses at the Sainte-Félicité clinic.

Convincing
evidence of a miracle — usually a medical cure with no scientific
explanation — is essential in the beatification process.

The Catholic
Church demands proof of a medically unexplained healing to give
that honor and a second such case to declare him a saint.

However, Reuters includes this:

Father Luc-Marie Lalanne, who led the inquiry in the
Aix-en-Provence archdiocese, said a psychiatrist and three
neurologists -- two of them university professors -- had
testified they could not explain the nun's recovery.

Enjoy Palm Sunday. If you remember Elizabeth Edwards or Tony Snow, that would be good.

The Times covers the testimony of Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales:

WASHINGTON, March 29 — The former chief of staff to Alberto R. Gonzales testified on Thursday that he had consulted regularly with the attorney general about dismissing United States attorneys, disputing Mr. Gonzales’s public account of his role as very limited.

The former aide, D. Kyle Sampson, who resigned two weeks ago, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Mr. Gonzales’s statements about the prosecutors’ dismissals were inaccurate and that the attorney general had been repeatedly advised of the planning for them.

The two men talked about the dismissal plans over a two-year period, Mr. Sampson said, beginning in early 2005 when Mr. Gonzales was still the White House counsel. Mr. Sampson said he had briefed his boss at least five times before December 2006, when seven of the eight prosecutors were ousted.

OK, I will take a stand here and pronounce that this was not helpful to Gonzales. The Times editors joined in:

But if Mr. Sampson was trying to fall on his sword, he had horrible aim. In testimony that got so embarrassing for the White House that the Republicans tried to cut it off, Mr. Sampson simply ended up making it clearer than ever that the eight prosecutors were fired for political reasons.

He provided more evidence, also, that the attorney general and other top Justice Department officials were dishonest in their initial statements about the firings.

"Fired for political reasons" is pretty vague, considering that these people were appointed for political reasons.Dana Milbank of the WaPo has more - apparently Mr. Sampson staged an "I Don't RememberFest" - look for him to appear as a spokesman for gingko-bilboa, if he remembers to show up. But I am not criticicizing! Given the temper of the times, and the Dems desire for a perjury prosecution, not remembering may be the safer stratgey.

March 28, 2007

The WaPo and Reuters brace us for Kyle Sampson's Thursday testimony to the Senate
Judiciary Committee investigating the firings of eight US Attorneys.

From the WaPo:

The Justice Department admitted today that officials "may have provided
inaccurate and incomplete information" to Congress about the firings of
eight U.S. attorneys, and turned over new documents laying the blame
for the inaccuracies on the attorney general's former chief of staff.

...The release of 202 pages of new documents by Justice comes before
scheduled testimony in the Senate tomorrow morning by D. Kyle Sampson,
the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

...Sampson is expected to testify tomorrow that numerous other officials
were aware he was coordinating the firings with the White House and
that he decided to resign because he failed to see the political threat
posed by the firings.

And Reuters, which got a sneak copy of Sampson's opening statement:

It was all Roves' fault - Rove, Rove, ROVE!

Sorry, libs, just messin' - here we go again:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The firings of eight federal
prosecutors "were properly made, but poorly explained," U.S.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' former chief of staff said
in testimony prepared for delivery to Congress.

"For my part, in allowing what should have been a routine
process of assuring the Congress that nothing untoward occurred
to become an ugly, undignified spectacle, I want to apologize,"
Kyle Sampson said in his prepared testimony, a copy of which
was obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

He wants to apologize? Save it for The Comedy Channel.

"The distinction between 'political' and
'performance-related' reasons for removing a U.S. attorney is,
in my view, largely artificial," Sampson said.

Monica Goodling, an aide to embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, has taken the Fifth rather than testify before Senator Leahy's Judiciary Committee in its probe into the firing of eight US attorneys.

I have thoughts on that specific story below but let me just pass on my guess as to where Leahy is headed.

His goal is to gather testimony from a number of Administration officials in order to create a case of perjury. Is there any serious prospect that he will uncover a plot to fire specific US Attorneys in order to obstruct their investigations of corrupt Republicans? Of course not.

However, somewhere in the morass of testimony will be conflicting stories. In Washington today, as Libby discovered, people Republicans don't have poor memories - they lie, or at least that is what aggressive prosecutors and compliant juries believe.

So Leahy's goal is to take some conflicting testimony and have his committee refer a case to the Department of Justice for possible perjury.

Common sense (or more vocally, Chuck Schumer) will then demand the appointment of a Special Counsel, since the DoJ can not credibly investigate itself.

And the new Special Counsel, Fitzgerald II, will put everyone in the White House under oath and indict the people with the least plausible stories, plus Karl Rove (basically, for being Rove).

Well, that is Leahy's plan as I see it; we await developments. The beauty part of this plan is that, unlike the Plame investigation, there is no reason to think that reporters will be subpoenaed. Consequently, the usual suspects in the press will be reliable cheerleaders throughout the process.

However! Rep. Waxman has already drawn a bit from the credibility well with his Plameshowcase a few weeks back - Republicans ought to point out that there are serious open questions about Valerie Plame's newly recovered memories, and wonder whether it can really be the case that Democrats only fret over conflicts in testimony that comes from Republicans.

If Valerie Plame can become the poster girl for selective Democratic outrage about misleading Congressional testimony then she will have carried on the fine tradition of service begun by her husband.

JUST TO REVIEW: Ms. Plame's recent House testimony was quite vivid as to the circumstances in which her husband was selected for the Niger trip in 2002 - here is a transcript and John Podhoretz's amusing summary.

But in 2004 she told a different story to the Senate Intelligence Committee when that group was probing the question of pre-war intelligence. Here is Sen. Kit Bond in a 2004 floor statement:

I had staff go back and see what she said when asked about this issue [of her role in Joe's trip]. Her quote was:

“I honestly do not recall if I suggested it to my boss....”

And Sen. Bond has told the Byron York that Ms. Plame's current story is all new to him:

“Friday [March 16] was the first time we have ever heard that story,”
Sen. Bond said in a statement. “Obviously if we had, we would have
included it in the report. If Ms. Wilson’s memory of events has
improved and she would now like to change her testimony, I’m sure the
committee staff would be happy to re-interview her.”

Well. The Democrats would never engage in selective outrage about misleading Congressional testimony, would they? And partisan Democrats won't sit idly by while Ms. Plame's credibility is impugned by the likes of, well, me, will they?

This is a triple play for the Dems - here is an opportunity for Waxman to demonstrate that the Democrats take all Congressional testimony seriously, to give Valerie Wilson a chance to rebut these vicious smears, and to put the boot to the Evil Republicans who air these charges against two heroic public servants (that would be Joe and Val) - its all good. I assume that Democrats will want to release the suitably redacted transcript of Ms. Wilson's Senate testimony post-haste. Let's go.

SO FAR SO GOOD: Waxman has sent a letter to DCI Hayden hoping to gain clarity about possible inaccuracies in the Senate report relating to the circumstances of Joe's selection. Will he report whatever he finds, or is this heads Valerie wins, tails we hear nothing? My guess is that Republicans also get a look at these new documents.

As to what documents Hayden chooses to send over, who knows? The transcript of Ms. Wilson's testimony to the Senate was not specifically requested, but it would certainly be responsive.

Shades of I. Lewis Libby! Gonzales aide Monica Goodling has been advised by her attorney to take the Fifth rather than step into the perjury trap being offered by Sen. Leahy of the Judiciary Committee in his "probe" of the firing of eight US attorneys.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's senior counselor yesterday
refused to testify in the Senate about her involvement in the firings
of eight U.S. attorneys, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against
self-incrimination.

Monica M. Goodling, who has taken an
indefinite leave of absence, said in a sworn affidavit to the Senate
Judiciary Committee that she will "decline to answer any and all
questions" about the firings because she faces "a perilous environment
in which to testify."

Goodling, who was also Justice's liaison to the White House, and her
lawyers alleged that Democratic lawmakers have already concluded that
improper motives were at play in Justice's dismissal of eight U.S.
attorneys last year. Goodling also pointed to indications that Deputy
Attorney General Paul J. McNulty blames her and others for not fully
briefing him, leading to inaccurate testimony to Congress.

So a senior official, probably McNulty, has already pinned the blame for his own bum testimony on Goodling. If her "truth" does not match that "truth", who is lying? Both the WaPo and the Times shelter their readers from the recent history invoked by Ms. Goodling's attorney, but the AP and The Hill do not. From the AP:

John Dowd, Goodling's lawyer, suggested in a letter to Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that the Democrat-led panel
has laid what amounts to a perjury trap for his client.

..."The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most
truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very
real," Dowd said. Goodling was key to the Justice Department's
political response to the growing controversy. She took a leave of
absence last week."One
need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings
involving Lewis Libby," Dowd said, a reference to the recent conviction
of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff in the CIA leak
case.

Josh Marshall offers what is either the most naive or the most disingenuous comment I have seen today (but the day is young!):

And the most sensible defense against a perjury trap, I would have thought, would be to tell the truth.

D'oh! Just tell the truth! But if two or three others lie, or misremember, what then? Or if Ms. Goodling misremembers, is that a deliberate lie or an honest mistake? And who will decide - calm, objective observers or partisan Dems looking for scalps and opportunities for fund-raising appeals?

Eventually, the partisan Democrats on the Committee will have an opportunity to vote out a criminal referral to the DoJ, which can then try the case in front of a partisan DC jury. Is that really a sensible venue in which Ms. Goodling ought to try her luck? Josh Marshall's strongest point is this - "I'm obviously not a lawyer". Well, I am not a lawyer either, but in my view, as a tactical ploy Ms. Goodling ought to start with this letter and try to negotiate use immunity with the Senate. Frankly I am surprised that the recently resigned Mr. Sampson is not going that route.

MORE: Orin Kerr, who is a lawyer (or anyway, a student of the law), is skeptical of the use of the Fifth Amendment in this context. I remain unskeptical of its value as a negotiating ploy - Ms. Goodling can hold out for use immunity now while Leahy has our attention and Gonzales is on the ropes, or he can slog through interminable contempt citations and appeals and obtain her testimony in time for the Thanksgiving recess. (And what if Lindsay Lohan belches in public in the interim? All eyes will be off of this.)

March 26, 2007

Earlier today, the world’s largest airliner flew from Europe to New
York and the plane’s wingspan is as wide as a football field. In fact,
the plane is so big it can carry 500 passengers or 80 Americans.

Byron York reports that Questions Have Been Raised about Ms. Plame's recent testimony at the friendly Waxman hearing:

...[Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia] wants to know more. In a letter to committee chairman Rep.
Henry Waxman Friday, he submitted more questions for Mrs. Wilson and
requested that Waxman ask the Senate Intelligence Committee for
information that could shed light on issues left unresolved after her
testimony.

As part of its investigation into pre-war
intelligence, the Senate committee interviewed Mrs. Wilson, as well as
some of her colleagues at the CIA. The committee also reviewed CIA
documents about the Niger uranium affair. In his letter, Westmoreland
asked Waxman to ask the Senate committee for the full text of Mrs.
Wilson’s interview with Senate investigators. Westmoreland also asked
for the “full text of Ms. Plame’s February 12, 2002 email/memo to her
boss regarding sending her husband, Joseph Wilson, to Niger.”

Westmoreland
is attempting to learn more about the origin of Joseph Wilson’s trip —
a question that was perhaps less clear after Valerie Plame Wilson’s
testimony than before.

...[Ms. Plame's] testimony seemed to offer new insight into the beginnings of the
Niger mission. But soon after Mrs. Wilson’s appearance, Missouri
Republican Sen. Christopher Bond, vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, told National Review Online that Mrs.
Wilson, in her interview with Senate investigators, never mentioned the
young junior officer, the call from the vice president’s office, or the
passing CIA official who suggested Joseph Wilson’s name.

“Friday
[March 16] was the first time we have ever heard that story,” Sen. Bond
said in a statement. “Obviously if we had, we would have included it in
the report. If Ms. Wilson’s memory of events has improved and she would
now like to change her testimony, I’m sure the committee staff would be
happy to re-interview her.”

I had staff go back and see what she said when asked about this issue [of her role in Joe's trip]. Her quote was:

“I honestly do not recall if I suggested it to my boss....”

But now she remembers Walking By Guy and is sure of her non-role. Why do the rest of us fear aging when clearly memory improves with time?

Let me recycle this post from the day of the hearing when I noted that Ms. Plame's claim of non-involvement conflict with the trial testimony of senior CIA officer Robert Grenier, as well as point 7 of Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby (which was based on Grenier's grand jury testimony).

So what happens next? From Mr. York:

The question now is whether chairman Waxman will be inclined to do
anything about Westmoreland’s request. Other than place it into the
official record of the hearing, he doesn’t have to do anything.

Ms. Plame has nothing to worry about - If Waxman stands with her, who will stand against her? I noted last week the benefits to her of testifying before a madly sympathetic chairman who would never vex her with allegations of perjury.

My guess - this topic essentially dies for now, but chess-playing Republicans will cite Waxman's blatant and selective truth-seeking as a reason to obstruct other probes. So in that sense, Joe and Val will continue to diminish their supporters amongst the Democrats.

ERRATA: Please - the post has the Matt Cooper Tribute Question Mark - no one is calling Ms. Plame a liar.

Byron York also had an earlier article reprising the issue of Ms. Plame's covert status, which we are now calling her "covertiness". And I endorse the suggestion that in further tribute to Stephen Colbert, when describing Ms. Plame as a "covert" agent we should pronounce that "coh-vair"?

And we are thinking Patrick Sullivan for the Bond floor statement from 2004; a paragraph was inserted to include that.

Bob Novak, writing about Bush as isolated from the Congressional Republicans, closes with this:

Regarding Libby and Gonzales, unofficial word from the White House is
not reassuring. One credible source says the president will never --
not even on the way out of office in January 2009 -- pardon Libby.
Another equally good source says the president will never ask Gonzales
to resign. That exactly reverses the prevailing Republican opinion in
Congress. Bush is alone.

But I am intrigued by the "strategy" here - is the White House really not worried that Libby, fearing abandonment, will look for a better deal from Fitzgerald? Personally I don't think Libby has a damaging "true" story to tell, but I have no doubt he could generate headlines with which the White House would prefer not to deal.

So why leak anything at all on this subject? Or why get dragged into telling one story to the press and another through more direct channels to Libby? Why create buzz on this? Baffling. But since the theme of the Novak column is the incompetence of this Administration, maybe not so baffling.

March 25, 2007

Garance Franke-Ruta of TAPPED, in the course of defending Hillary! against various male evil-doers, alerts us to the news that the men of TAPPED are average and the women are shy:

Today, the Gallup Poll reported
that "Clinton's highest level of support is among 18- to 49-year-old
women; her lowest, among 18- to 49-year-old men." And so, with all due
respect to Sam and Matt and Scott and Ezra and Mark, their views on this site must be understood as unavoidably a reflection of their demographics, as well as their judgment...

I only wish she had broken that down with a bit more detail - is it Matt Yglesias who speaks for the blue-collar worker with a high school degree? Does Ezra Klein speak for the young black males of the Dem party? Or are they all just average guys speaking for the average guy? Gosh, I feel like buying them all a beer or something while we talk college hoops.

Or is it possible that the demographics of the TAP newsroom are such that TAP has never "looked like America", to borrow Bill Clinton's famous phrase? Prior to this news break from Ms. Garance-Ruta I would have guessed that TAP was over-represented in the hyper-educated, hyper-verbal, hypo-paid demographic and less well represented elsewhere. My bad.

As to the women of TAP, pending the release of the calendar we must rely on this anecdote in forming our assessments:

As the conversation turned to '08, a young woman spoke up softly. "I
like Hillary," she said. Very quickly, several men raised their voices
against her, expounding, at great length, on everything that was wrong
with Hillary, and why she couldn't win, and why no one should support
her. The young woman said nothing in reply, and, in fact, said nothing
more for the remainder of the evening. But I'm not sure that her mind
was changed.

And given the male over-representation in the pundit class...

That means that the demographic bias of men against Hillary is offered
a far greater public airing than the demographic bias of women for her,
and that the few women who are around will be more likely to be like
the young woman at happy hour, and prefer to sit in silent disagreement
rather than feel themselves pounced upon by all the loudest voices at
the table, or in the midst of an eight on one intra-office fight.

Ahh! The TAPPERS are not "sexist", they are simply in the grip of a "demographic bias". Glad we cleared that up. And Dem women are such shrinking violets that their voices will neither be raised nor heard. Who knew?

So that is TAPPED, where the men are average and the women are shy - cancel my subscription.

MORE: OK, I would need to subscribe first... can I cancel my on-line subscription? Geez, a little hyperbole...

Max Frankel, a Times elder statesman, writes in the Sunday Times Magazine that the Fitzgerald investigation and Libby trial exacted too high a price in terms of lost press freedom and dimunition of the free flow of leaks.

Critics will surely note that this recognition is conveniently timed, since there is at least a possibility that another round of leak investigations will hit the Times a bit closer to home - the NSA warrantless eavesdropping case springs to mind.

And nowhere in this account does Mr. Frankel mention David Gregory by name - Ari Fleischer testified that he leaked to Mr. Gregory, but Mr. Gregory has not, as best I know, ever confirmed or denied that. We are deeply intrigued because Mr. Gregory's story (if he ever tells it) would effect the credibility of either prosecution witness Ari Fleischer or prosecution witness and NBC heavyweight Tim Russert.

Now Max Frankel is playing along with that little part of the NBC cover-up - nice to see such solidarity on the journalism team.

Here we go:

Libby’s reasonable expectation that reporters would keep his
confidences — and protect his perjury — was foiled by some weird
mishaps and finally by the shrewd maneuvers of a passionate and
politically independent prosecutor. The resulting trial produced a
fascinating display of how information is harvested in Washington and
how secrets are dripped out by officialdom. But I kept thinking that
the compelled testimony about reporters and their sources would end up
doing more damage than even the reckless violation of a C.I.A.

...

VIII. So was Libby’s prosecution worth a
four-year judicial and journalistic circus? Was it worth turning the
White House into a defensive fortress? Was it worth invading newsroom
files and alerting other sources that their chance of exposure has been
significantly increased? Was tracking down one leak worth the risk that
greater wrongdoing will go unreported in the future?

The damage
to newsgathering, I believe, has been significant. Celebrity
journalists like Bob Woodward and Tim Russert may not lose access to
sources, but more vulnerable reporters and less-wealthy media outlets
will surrender to the subpoenas and jail threats now descending on them
in unprecedented numbers. Some will betray confidences; some will
suppress articles whose defense would be costly. Others may avoid risky
reporting altogether.

...

Much as I enjoyed the human drama and revelations of the Libby case,
I wound up regretting the rough ride of the law through the marketplace
of information.

Fitzgerald may be forgiven his passionate defense
of the integrity of grand-jury proceedings and F.B.I. investigations.
But attorneys general should resist the temptation to interfere with
newsgathering or to delegate such a decision to a single-minded special
counsel. When a White House leak is suspected, it is hard to avoid an
independent prosecutor, but it’s a pressure worth resisting. Nothing in
the last four decades has altered my preference for the chaotic
condition I described when I asked the courts not to fret over the lost
secrets of the Pentagon Papers:

For the vast majority of
“secrets,” there has developed between the government and the press
(and Congress) a rather simple rule of thumb: The government hides what
it can, pleading necessity as long as it can, and the press pries out
what it can, pleading a need and right to know. Each side in this “game” regularly “wins” and “loses” a round or two.
Each fights with the weapons at its command. When the government loses
a secret or two, it simply adjusts to a new reality. When the press
loses a quest or two, it simply reports (or misreports) as best it can.
Or so it has been, until this moment.

It may sound cynical to conclude that tolerating abusive leaks by
government is the price that society has to pay for the benefit of
receiving essential leaks about government. But that awkward condition
has long served to protect the most vital secrets while dislodging the
many the public deserves to know.

The article provides a long review of the Libby trial and merits the red pen. Here are just a few points Mr. Frankel's editor might have queried (emphasis added throughout):

But divisions surfaced! Where were the black bloggers, or Latino bloggers, or Muslims, or lefthanded alternatively-gendered polytheistic Fijian bloggers?

And no Clinton event would be complete without attractive young women, so let's have a photo and somecommentary.

The Nutroots - can't make this stuff up.

Oh, well - FWIW, here is Clinton's outrage:

Former President Bill Clinton yesterday complained that
"it’s just not fair" the way his wife, presidential candidate Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is being depicted for her
controversial Iraq war vote.

Speaking to hundreds of supporters on conference call, the former
president said, "I don’t have a problem with anything Barack Obama
[has] said on this," but "to characterize Hillary and Obama’s positions
on the war as polar opposites is ludicrous.

"This dichotomy that’s been set up to allow him to become the raging
hero of the anti-war crowd on the Internet is just factually
inaccurate."

I am agog at the latest plot twist in the Eight Men Out debacle involving Alberto Gonzalez and the eight fired US Attorneys, as reported in the Times:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senior advisers discussed the plan to remove seven United States attorneys
at a meeting last Nov. 27, 10 days before the dismissals were carried
out, according to a Justice Department calendar entry disclosed Friday.

The previously undisclosed meeting appeared to contradict Mr.
Gonzales’s previous statements about his knowledge of the dismissals.
He said at a news conference on March 13 that he had not participated
in any discussions about the removals, but knew in general that his
aides were working on personnel changes involving United States
attorneys.

So far, I am undaunted - I would take for granted that the US Attorney General would know about the plan, even if he did not get involved every (or in this case, any) step of the way.

However, this is absurd:

Ms. Scolinos said the meeting was in Mr. Gonzales’s conference room
at the Justice Department. The meeting focused on “rollout” of the
dismissals, she said, and from available records was not a meeting in
which a final target list was determined.

Another department official said that Mr. Gonzales did not recall
the meeting and that his aides had been unable to determine whether he
approved the dismissal plan then.

The meeting took place as Mr. Gonzales’s aides awaited final White
House approval of a detailed dismissal plan that had been drafted by D.
Kyle Sampson, Mr. Gonzales’s chief of staff. His plan was sent to the
White House on Nov. 15, according to previously released e-mail. Harriet E. Miers,
the White House counsel at the time, approved Mr. Sampson’s proposal on
Dec. 4, and the dismissals were carried out three days later.

They don't know if they had a final target list on Nov 27, even though the plan had been sent over for White House approval on Nov 15?

Since a key part of the process meant to be managed by the White House (i.e., Karl Rove) was the politics of soothing the home-state Senators of the fired US Attorneys, how could the list sent to the White House have not included the final names?

And how could we be expected to believe that Harriet Miers and Gonzales' chief of staff came up with a list without Gonzales reviewing it at some point? Who is in charge?

And his aides can't remember if he approved it? Geez, as the old television broadcast used to say, due to technical difficulties the Invisible Man will not be seen tonight. And the Invisible Boss will not be heard from at DoJ.

At this point, Gonzales should either resign for lying, or resign for ineptitude. This "See no evil, hear no evil" explanation is past embarrassing.

MORE: I welcome a pep talk, natch... Let me look around for other reax.

Powerline is unfazed if Bush is, and link to the WaPo version. Here is how the WaPo reports on the "hour-long" meeting:

[Spokeswoman] Scolinos also said there is no evidence that meeting participants
reviewed a draft memo on the firing plan, written by Sampson, that was
dated six days earlier and widely distributed among Justice Department
and White House officials.

According to Scolinos and her deputy,
Brian Roehrkasse, there is also no evidence that individual U.S.
attorneys were discussed at the meeting.

Must have been quite an hour. A plan is sitting with the White House but they didn't review that, and no names were mentioned. I don't want to ask what they did talk about, because I am afraid they will tell me and then I will hurt myself laughing.

EVERYONE'S A CRITIC: Brad DeLong makes a good point about the Times coverage of what Tony Snow said versus what the Times reported.

But why does he call it "journamalism" and not "journaminimalism", which we can suggest as a new sub-category. Put me in this camp, and no, Google is not helping. Bah - I'll go with the face value interpretation that "journamalism" is something similar to but a few flawed notches down from "journalism".

Marcy Wheeler, aka the EmptyWheel, comes up empty with this argument about Robert Novak and I. Lewis Libby.

For brevity let me extract her main point:

I wasn't going to do this. I contemplated letting the whole Plame thing go. But hell, if Novak can blab on about it forever, then I think I ought to take the time (we're talking a four-part series, I think) to show that Novak is a lying [liar].

I know, I know. That Libby is a certified (by 11 jurors) liar is old
news. But I think I can demonstrate that Libby--and [Robert Novak]--both lied about their conversation on July 9. I'll start by
showing that Novak almost certainly lied about whether Libby told him
anything "useful" leading up to Novak's July 14 column.

RN I was trying to find out more information about Wilson's mission
to Niger and VP's connection. Most memorable about call, I asked Libby
if he might be helpful to me in establishing timeline in 16 words. When
they came in, who proposed it, sort of a consecutive account that I
could put in column. I interpreted him as saying he could be helpful.

W In context of talking to Libby did Wilson's wife come up.

RN I don't remember exactly, I might have raised that question, I
got no help, and no confirmation on that issue. The reason I'm fuzzy is
that I talk to a lot of people in govt an politics everyday and a lot
of them are not very helpful and I discard unhelpful conversations in
my memory bank.

No
matter. For the moment, Novak's line is that Libby didn't give him
anything helpful and so he just wiped his conversation with Libby clean
from his memory bank. Poof!

But if it was so damned unhelpful, then why is there one of Dick's favorite talking points right in the middle of Novak's column?

The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.

The balance of her post than supports (successfully, I would say) the notion that Novak's mention of State and Pentagon interest in the Niger question very probably came from Libby.

Well, enough hints - between my excerpt and the concession that she probably proves her point about Libby, I suspect it will not puzzle the JOM readership to spot the flaw in her argument, so let me leave it at that for now.

I do appear in her comments section with my answer to this, as does Maybee, so if you are not in the mood for a Saturday puzzle check there.

And let me add that Maybee and I are greeted nicely but not treated well by Ms. Wheeler herself; like a lot of us, I suspect she does not present well when standing in the wreckage of her latest argument. Whatever - Maybee has been advised to seek reading lessons, I have been alerted to my stupidity and dishonesty, and away we go; another day on the Internet. Let me hasten to add that normally the readers at her site are, hmm, roughly as tolerant of opposing views as the readers here, which is to say they are fine if you are making sense; in this instance, the petulance starts at the top.

MORE: Strolling through the arguments I see that it was Maybee herself who sparked the real brawl with this:

March 23, 2007

Retreat and ButterAre Democrats in the House voting for farm subsidies or withdrawal from Iraq?

TODAY THE House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill that
would grant $25 million to spinach farmers in California. The
legislation would also appropriate $75 million for peanut storage in
Georgia and $15 million to protect Louisiana rice fields from
saltwater. More substantially, there is $120 million for shrimp and
menhaden fishermen, $250 million for milk subsidies, $500 million for
wildfire suppression and $1.3 billion to build levees in New Orleans.

Altogether
the House Democratic leadership has come up with more than $20 billion
in new spending, much of it wasteful subsidies to agriculture or pork
barrel projects aimed at individual members of Congress. At the tail of
all of this logrolling and political bribery lies this stinger:
Representatives who support the bill -- for whatever reason -- will be
voting to require that all U.S. combat troops leave Iraq by August
2008, regardless of what happens during the next 17 months or whether
U.S. commanders believe a pullout at that moment protects or endangers
U.S. national security, not to mention the thousands of American
trainers and Special Forces troops who would remain behind.

Until last night, Pelosi couldn't even get a majority to support this
porkfest supplemental. Now, however, the Post reports that the Out of
Iraq caucus has acquiesced and generated enough votes for passage...

...Of course, the pork had nothing to do with their sudden support.
They gave up on their wrongheaded but principled demand to produce an
honest withdrawal bill out of a sense of ... what? Duty? Honor? It
seems that surrender comes rather naturally to this group of Democrats.

Pelosi's machinations delivered a good laugh line, as reported in the Times:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
a California Democrat, used an array of persuasion techniques — some
hard, some soft — as she walked through the House chamber on Thursday,
seeking out undecided legislators in hopes of securing the 218 votes
needed to pass the measure. Representative John Lewis,
Democrat of Georgia and a former civil rights leader and chief deputy
whip, told Ms. Pelosi this week that he would oppose the bill because
of his commitment to nonviolence and his unwillingness to devote more
money to the war. “Let’s pray about it,” he recalled Ms. Pelosi saying.
Ultimately, he added, “she respected my decision.”

"Let's pray"? If The Coach had suggested a quick prayer with The Hammer prior to a vote on a pork-filled war appropriation, the resulting snark from lefty bloggers would fill a small cesspool. Whatever.

The NY Times front-pages "senior Administration officials" who want to get embattled Attorney General Gonzalez out of the way so the US can close its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. This sort of public division and finger-pointing, I would say, is the hallmark of a lame duck Administration and not at all the United BushCo of years past - here we go:

New to Job, Gates Argued for Closing Guantánamo

By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, March 22 — In his first weeks as defense secretary, Robert M. Gates
repeatedly argued that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,
had become so tainted abroad that legal proceedings at Guantánamo would
be viewed as illegitimate, according to senior administration
officials. He told President Bush and others that it should be shut
down as quickly as possible.

Mr. Gates’s appeal was an effort to turn Mr. Bush’s publicly stated
desire to close Guantánamo into a specific plan for action, the
officials said. In particular, Mr. Gates urged that trials of terrorism
suspects be moved to the United States, both to make them more credible
and because Guantánamo’s continued existence hampered the broader war
effort, administration officials said.

Mr. Gates’s arguments were rejected after Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales
and some other government lawyers expressed strong objections to moving
detainees to the United States, a stance that was backed by the office
of Vice President Dick Cheney, administration officials said.

As Mr. Gates was making his case, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
joined him in urging that the detention facility be shut down,
administration officials said. But the high-level discussions about
closing Guantánamo came to a halt after Mr. Bush rejected the approach,
although officials at the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department continue to analyze options for the detention of terrorism suspects.

And what about the current situation?

Even so, one senior administration official who favors the closing of the facility said the battle might be renewed.

“Let’s see what happens to Gonzales,” that official said, referring
to speculation that Mr. Gonzales will be forced to step down, or at
least is significantly weakened, because of the political uproar over
the dismissal of United States attorneys. “I suspect this one isn’t over yet.”

Details of the internal discussions on Guantánamo were described by
senior officials from three departments or agencies of the executive
branch, including officials who support moving rapidly to close
Guantánamo and those who do not. One official made it clear that he was
willing to discuss the internal deliberations in part because of Mr.
Gonzales’s current political weakness. The senior officials discussed
the issue on ground rules of anonymity because it entailed confidential
conversations.

There are apparently significant legal issues to the alternatives on offer, but multi-lateralists will delight in this:

In an interview on Thursday, Gordon England, the deputy secretary of
defense who is Mr. Gates’s point man on detention issues, suggested
that the long-term answer to Guantánamo might be creating some new
international legal structure or set of multilateral agreements to
manage captured members of global terrorist organizations.

“I don’t know the alternative unless the international community,
frankly, develops an alternative,” Mr. England said. “It is not a U.S.
problem. It is an international problem to be dealt with.”

What are we talking about, a UN sponsored detention facility? That will be the day.

MORE: And who's gonna run it - you, Tony Blair? You, Jacques Chirac? You want me on that wall...

March 22, 2007

"You've been so extreme in some of your expressions that you're
losing some of your own people," announced Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.),
the committee's ranking Republican and the man who has called man-made
global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American
people."Inhofe informed Gore.

I've seen that quote many times, I know it is a favored lefty talking point, I know I won't be seeing any corrections, but - Inhofe's actual statement was a bit more defensible and (dare we say it) nuanced:

As I said on the Senate floor on July 28, 2003,
"much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather
than science." I called the threat of catastrophic global warming the
"greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," a statement
that, to put it mildly, was not viewed kindly by environmental
extremists and their elitist organizations. I also pointed out, in a
lengthy committee report, that those same environmental extremists
exploit the issue for fundraising purposes, raking in millions of
dollars, even using federal taxpayer dollars to finance their campaigns.

"Catastrophic" global warming is the hoax - fears are exaggerated. It does not follow that Inhofe believes that global warming is not happening at all, or that there is no man-made component to that. Here is a snippet from the speech to which I linked:

To address this, let's ask some
simple questions: Is global warming causing more extreme weather events
of greater intensity, and is it causing sea levels to rise? The answer
to both is an emphatic 'no'.
[Chart #3] Just look at this chart behind me. It's titled "Climate
Related Disasters in Asia: 1900 to 1990s." What does it show? It shows
the number of such disasters in Asia, and the deaths attributed to
them, declining fairly sharply over the last 30 years.

Much of the debate over global warming is
predicated on fear, rather than science. Global warming alarmists see a
future plagued by catastrophic flooding, war, terrorism, economic
dislocations, droughts, crop failures, mosquito-borne diseases, and
harsh weather-all caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

Hans
Blix, chief U.N. weapons inspector, sounded both ridiculous and
alarmist when he said in March, "I'm more worried about global warming
than I am of any major military conflict."

...

Today, even saying there is scientific
disagreement over global warming is itself controversial. But anyone
who pays even cursory attention to the issue understands that
scientists vigorously disagree over whether human activities are
responsible for global warming, or whether those activities will
precipitate natural disasters.

I would submit, furthermore, that not only is
there a debate, but the debate is shifting away from those who
subscribe to global warming alarmism. After studying the issue over the
last several years, I believe that the balance of the evidence offers
strong proof that natural variability is the overwhelming factor
influencing climate.

It's also important to question whether global
warming is even a problem for human existence. Thus far no one has
seriously demonstrated any scientific proof that increased global
temperatures would lead to the catastrophes predicted by alarmists. In
fact, it appears that just the opposite is true: that increases in
global temperatures may have a beneficial effect on how we live our
lives.

For these reasons I would like to discuss an
important body of scientific research that refutes the anthropogenic
theory of catastrophic global warming. I believe this research offers
compelling proof that human activities have little impact on climate.

OK - I think he loses audience on the notion that human activities have little impact on global warming. However, his other point is that the science behind the alarmism is highly dubious, and on that theme, the NY Times has joined in with support for Inhofe - a highly selective snippet:

Some of Mr. Gore’s centrist detractors point to a report last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations
body that studies global warming. The panel went further than ever
before in saying that humans were the main cause of the globe’s warming
since 1950, part of Mr. Gore’s message that few scientists dispute. But
it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process.

It
estimated that the world’s seas in this century would rise a maximum of
23 inches — down from earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular
time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New
York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the
waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent.

Gore could be right that man-made global warming is happening yet wrong about the severity of the problem and wrong about proposed "solutions".

Similarly, Inhofe may be wrong in his emphasis on natural causes as explaining global warming yet correct that Gore is exaggerating the problem.

I ought to review my official editorial position, which I post from time to time - I think global warming is happening and that there is a significant man-made component; and I think that as a policy "solution" Kyoto was a joke and a diversion of resources from more sensibledo-gooding.

UPDATE: Here is the conclusion to the 2003 Inhofe speech:

In the words of Dr. Frederick Seitz, a past president of the National Academy of Sciences, and a professor emeritus at Rockefeller University, who compiled the Oregon Petition:

“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earthʼs atmosphere and disruption of the Earthʼs climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”

With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it.

Notice how that conclusion does *not* say that global warming is not happening - rather, it questions whether global warming is man-made, and whether it will be catastrophic.

Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra could hardly believe what he heard last
Friday on television as he watched a House Oversight and Government
Reform Committee hearing. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic committee
chairman, said his statement had been approved by the CIA director,
Gen. Michael Hayden. That included the assertion that Valerie Plame
Wilson was a covert CIA operative when her identity was revealed.

As House Intelligence Committee chairman when Republicans still
controlled Congress, Hoekstra had tried repeatedly to learn Plame's
status from the CIA but got only double talk from Langley. Waxman may
be a bully and a partisan. But he is no fool who would misrepresent the
director of Central Intelligence. Waxman was correctly quoting Hayden.
But Hayden, in a conference with Hoekstra Wednesday, still did not
answer whether Plame was covert under the terms of the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act.

No, we are not surprised since we pointed out the obvious weakness in Waxman's statement last Friday, but here is a quick recap. From Waxman:

But General Hayden and the CIA have cleared these following comments for today's hearing.

During her employment at the CIA, Ms. Wilson was under cover.

Her employment status with the CIA was classified information prohibited from disclosure under Executive Order 12958.

At the time of the publication of Robert Novak's column on July 14, 2003, Ms. Wilson's CIA employment status was covert.

This was classified information.

Fine, the CIA considered her to be "covert" as per their own internal classification scheme - who doubts it, and, from a legal perspective, who cares?

Sorry, that was a rhetorical question - every lefty blogger covering the hearing whooped and declared victory with Hayden's statement as read by Waxman; I'll toss in Christy Hardin Smith of firedoglake as an example. Read her carefully and try to identify any hint at all that Hayden's statement was not definitive as to Ms. Plame's legal status.

On the legal question what Waxman conspicuously did not say was anything like "The CIA Counsel has reviewed Ms. Plame's confidential file as well as the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and concluded that she qualifies as "covert" under that statute."

The WaPo covered the fact that "covert" is used in the non-legal sense:

Some news stories created initial confusion over Plame's status by
suggesting that disclosure of her name and employment may have violated
the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. That law, passed in
response to disclosure of the names of CIA officers serving overseas by
former CIA employee Philip Agee, made it a crime to disclose the names
of "covert agents," which the act narrowly defined as those serving
overseas or who had served as such in the previous five years.

"Covert
agent" is not a label actually used within the agency for its
employees, according to former senior CIA officials. Plame, who joined
the agency right out of Pennsylvania State University, underwent
rigorous spycraft training to become an officer in the Directorate of
Operations. (The term "agent" in the CIA is only applied to foreign
nationals recruited to spy in support of U.S. interests.)

MS. PLAME WILSON: For those of us that were
undercover in the CIA, we tended to use "covert" or "undercover"
interchangeably. I'm not -- we typically would not say of ourselves we
were in a "classified" position. You're kind of undercover or overt
employees.

And she emphasized several times that she was not a lawyer offering a legal opinion of her status under the statute. For example:

REP. DAVIS: The Intelligence Identities
Protection Act makes it a crime to knowingly disclose the identity of a
covert agent, which has a specific definition under the act. Did anyone
ever tell you that you were so designated?

MS. PLAME WILSON: I'm not a lawyer.

REP. DAVIS: That's why I asked if they told you. I'm not asking for your interpretation.

MS. PLAME WILSON: No, no. But I was covert. I did travel overseas on secret missions within the last five years.

REP.
DAVIS: I'm not arguing with that. What I'm asking is, for purposes of
the act -- and maybe this just never occurred to you or anybody else at
the time -- but did anybody say that you were so designated under the
act? Or was this just after it came to fact?

MS. PLAME WILSON: No, no one told me that.

She does not know her own legal status; Waxman did not offer the opinion of either Hayden or CIA Counsel as to her legal status; per Novak, DCI Hayden is not willing to opine on her legal status - hmm, I think the question of her legal status is, at best, unresolved.

That said, at some point Waxman's silence speaks volumes - surely he knew what answer he wanted from Hayden, yet apparently he didn't get it. Dare we infer that this is because the CIA legal counsel won't vouch for her covert status under the statute?

And my seemingly-simple suggestion remains on the table and unaddressed - CIA pensions are adjusted (upwards!) for service overseas (statute). So, does Ms. Plame's final pension reflect any upward adjustments for service abroad in her last five years? Surely Waxman can answer this question without giving away state secrets.

To be clear, the Other Tom has argued cogently and correctly in the comments last month that this would not be dispositive, since it would merely reflect CIA employee practice rather than the legislative intent of Congress when they passed the IIPA. However, it would be nice to see the definition of "service abroad" even in that context, and I bet a judge asked to rule on the applicability of the IIPA would have a similar question as to legal practice in other areas.

So although an answer to the pension question would not end the debate, it would shift the terms a bit.

If Ms. Plame did receive an upward bump for service abroad, Libby's defenders would need to push harder on the notion that the legislative intent in 1982 was quite different from CIA compensation practice today. I am personally undaunted, but yes, it would be one more boulder to roll uphill.

On the other hand, if the CIA does not consider her to have performed service abroad per their own employee practices, the notion that she was covered under the IIPA will remain as even more of a faith-based initiative than currently.

Just tossing that out there. In related news, Novak mentions that Chris Shays skipped the hearing - since he is my Congressman, I need to end my slacking off on this (and I will put this Chris Suellentrop plug in my letter - hah! It's almost like a Times endorsement).

ERRATA: This CRS Study skips the "service abroad" question but the footnotes represent a guide to the legislative history.

The John Conyers letter of 30 Jan 2004 from the CIA and about the CIA referral of the Plame case is no longer hosted at the House Judiciary Committee server, but Josh Marshall still has a copy.

Key point - the CIA referral was for an "unauthorized disclosure of classified information", *not* for an IIPA violation. Since Ms. Plame's status was classified, that is fine, but the referral does not answer the question of whether the CIA believed an IIPA violation had occured.

Back when "Reality-Based" was sweeping the left blogosphere I made an extremely obvious point - the phrase in question did not come from a conversation about reality-based versus faith-based; it come from a conversation about spectators and players, about talking about a problem versus taking action to change a problem.

A vivid example is the troop surge in Iraq. Think back to last fall - would we stay the course, or could a newly Democratic Congress pressure Bush to begin troop withdrawals? Would Rumsfeld's departure signal new flexibility by the Administration and pave the way for the adoption of the proposals of the Iraq Study Group?

And out of right field (OK, Kagan, The Weekly Standard, Dec 4 2006) came the idea of increasing the troop levels in Iraq, changing the Rules of Engagement and changing our tactics. That was not on anyone's menu in November.

Yet today, it is what we are talking about - it is the new reality.

Oh, so what - fun's fun, and I have no doubt the "Reality Based Community" will toodle along, happy to pretend that their slogan is not based on a willful misreading of a simple idea.

Writing as a guest contributer to the NY Times, Thomas B. Edsall urges the Democrats to abandon any pretense of leadership on the Iraq war and instead wallow in nostalgic hearings about the failed intelligence of 2002 and focus on blaming Bush for mismanaging the war.

Well - he does not put it quite that way, but almost; here is his lead:

THE Democratic majority in the House is trying to set policy for the Iraq war by committee — a fractious and divided committee.

If
the Democrats really want to play a role in the current Iraq debate,
they should take a look at what John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are up
to. These two Republican presidential contenders are pinning the blame
for the current morass squarely on President Bush, rather than tackling
the far more contentious project of how and when to bring the war to an
end.

The Democratic leadership, meanwhile, instead of hammering Mr. Bush,
has busied itself behind closed doors, producing a toothless,
loophole-ridden resolution that showcases the party’s generic antiwar
stance while trying to establish troop readiness requirements,
benchmarks for Iraqi progress and withdrawal timetables. The resolution
— more precisely, a set of deals intended to paper over intraparty
factions — is the result of a process better suited to a highway bill
than national security.

This patchwork proposal not only
demonstrates the House leadership’s inability to extract a meaningful
consensus from a membership that runs the ideological gamut from the
Out of Iraq Caucus on the left to the Blue Dogs on the right. It also
risks setting the Democrats up for a poisonous share of responsibility
for the failure of United States foreign policy, while amplifying
questions regarding Democratic competence on military matters.

Danger ahead! If the Dems actually try to lead, they may be associated with a failed policy! Oh, my, elections have consequences.

March 21, 2007

Now that it is Democrats in charge of the process, earmarks are simply democracy in action - the Times accepts an invitation to sit in on a freshman Congresswoman as she works through her earmark requests. The result is a very sympathetic appraisal of a once-corrupt process.

Conservatives and libertarians will not be surprised by one aspect of the Times coverage - per this reporting, at no point in the process does anyone wonder why the Federal government is writing these checks.

March 21, 2007 -- [We hear...] THAT Vice President Dick Cheney spoke to Hudson Institute members Monday at the Union League Club. Asked about a possible pardon for Scooter Libby, he smiled and said, "You can imagine how I feel about that." Libby himself was seated in the front row.

Although he does not disclose their full financial relationship, Mickey Kaus has a nepotistic link to his brother, Stephen on the subject of the fired US Attorneys, specifically Carol Lam.

I am going to slide past the lesser Kaus' childish description of me as a "wing-nut" - I imagine that is a requirement of the posting guidelines at the Huffington Blog, whose readers apparently welcome constant reassurance as to who the crazies are. I am also going to slide past his irritating inability to figure out how to spell my name (I found his posted on his blog; mine was on the post he cited, too, but I guess that was too tricky.)

Which takes us to his point. S Kaus objects to Patterico's argument that the LA Times presented a wildly inaccurate timeline of the Carol Lam firing, although he agrees that the LA Times presented a wildly inaccurate timeline of the Carol Lam firing. Whatever.

He then offers this:

So it does not matter, as Patterico and McGuire think it does, whether
Lam was being criticized for lax immigration prosecution in March 2005.
What matters is that by May 2006, the DOJ did not care about
immigration prosecution, it cared about corruption investigations of
the GOP and its cronies.

Last June, for example, Justice officials painstakingly drafted soothing responses to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa
(R-Calif.), who had expressed concerns that Lam was not aggressive
enough in prosecuting immigration violations in her San Diego district.
"Please rest assured that the immigration laws in the southern district
of California are being vigorously enforced," said a draft of a letter
from Moschella to Issa.

But e-mails show that senior Justice
officials were angry at Lam for her immigration record and planned for
months to remove her. William Mercer, now third in command at Justice,
exchanged a flurry of e-mails with Elston last July mocking Lam,
writing at one point in her voice: "You're right, I've ignored national
priorities and obvious local needs. Shoot my production is more hideous
than I realized."

Is the WaPo stuck in a similar time machine to that which trapped the LA Times - when they write "Last June", do they mean June 2005?

Or is S Kaus, hmm, wrong?

We make these tough judgments every day. I would bet on the WaPo, but why pretend there is any suspense? If the WaPo is wrong, so is the Copley New Service, which reports this:

WASHINGTON – At the same time Justice Department officials were
crafting letters assuring lawmakers that then-U.S. Attorney Carol Lam
of San Diego was “vigorously” enforcing immigration laws, they
privately questioned her prosecution philosophy, remarked that she
“can't meet a deadline” and suggested she be put “on a very short
leash” or be fired.

...In a letter to one congressman, a top Justice
official said Lam was correct in seeking to prosecute immigration
violators who “present the greatest threat to the community” instead of
racking up a large number of convictions. Yet an e-mail between Justice
officials discusses the “urgent need to improve immigration
enforcement” in San Diego.

...“It does appear they were supporting their own
while figuring out how to discipline or change (Lam's) behavior,” said
Issa, R-Vista. “That's been a pattern of this administration – which
has not had a great record of being forthcoming with Congress.”

...A June 1, 2006, memo from Kyle Sampson, then
chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, directs acting
Associate Attorney General Bill Mercer to have a “heart-to-heart” with
Lam about bolstering immigration enforcement.

“Put her on a very short leash,” Sampson wrote.
“If she balks on any of the foregoing or otherwise does not perform in
a measurable way by July 15, remove her.”

8:13 - Fred Dalton Thompson deserves better than Jonah's assessment of
him as a "bright new shiny thing". He could be a man who would not get
rolled. Jonah - He agrees. He wouldn't have guessed that at this stage
there would be this level of dissatisfaction with the current GOP
choices, and Jonah is concerned about the desperate quality of the
draft-Thompson impulse. So far, Jonah sees him as the Republican Obama.

WASHINGTON—The most liberal member of Congress running for the 2008
Democratic presidential nomination isn’t Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.

It’s Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

And the Republican candidate who’s grown less conservative over his years in Congress? Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Those are among the interesting findings in a recent analysis of
votes by all the members of Congress who are running for president.
They cut to the heart of debates going on among activists in both major
parties: Can a liberal Democrat win a general election? Which
Republican is ideologically pure enough to win support from
conservatives?

The study, released this month by the National Journal, a respected
inside-the-Beltway research report, will help voters cut through the
spin and hype of TV sound bites in coming months and judge these
candidates for themselves.

It won't help with the House versus Senate comparison, but here are the Poole rankings for the 109th Senate and House; other sessions are available by following the links, for anyone who wants to see whether McCain has changed his place in the Republican party.

Per Poole, Sen. Dodd is at 17; Obama is at 21, so Dodd is a more liberal Presidential candidate in the 109th Senate (National Journal did mention a lifetime score, and perhaps they restricted themselves to candidates whose prospects do not provoke guffaws; did they provide a separate ranking for Vice-Presidential candidates?).

On the Rep side, McCain is at 100, with only Kyl at 101 further to the right. (101? No, the 101st Senator is not Cheney - must be some replacement, but off hand I am stumped.)

Pressing on - McCain was at 57 in the 107th Senate and 96.5 in the 108th.

Here is a free Wall Street Journal story about one money manager's battle with the NY Times. OK, we are not talking David v. Gloiath here - more like Godzilla v. Goliath, since the money manager in question worked for Morgan Stanley and eventually picked up a bit of support from such luminaries as Jack Welch, formerly of GE, and former AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg.

As with the inital paper, the opening paragraph (initially written as a
letter to the Philidelphia Inquirer responding to the Smerconish
article) includes a massive, gratuitous, ad hominem swipe at all conservatives:

Mr. Smerconish chose to swift-boat us and our research in the tradition
of the attacks made on Senator Kerry and Congressman Murtha’s war
records in 2004, not to mention Rush Limbaugh’s ridiculing Michael J.
Fox’s Parkinson tremors.

That's pretty funny - a shorter defense would be Bush Lied, People Died, so this paper is right!

Our involvement in this dust-up began when I provided a guest Insta-link last week, and Pat has done yeoman work debunking this dubious study since then.

However, although it is junk social science, it is partisan junk social science, so it will surely retain its audience. And we thank Paul Krugman, who popularized it with his mention in a column last week.

MORE: Let's have some more background: The Political Profiling of Elected Democratic Officials: When Rhetorical Vision Participation Runs Amok by Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan is here.

Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication,
have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of
candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush
administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10
involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved
Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity
in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven
times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.

How
can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors
explain: “We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically
motivated and it occurs because the local (non-statewide and
non-Congressional) investigations occur under the radar of a diligent
national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an
isolated case that is only of local interest.”

Other commenters have expressed an alternative belief - Federal prosecutors are based in the bigger cities, and Democrats tend to control the bigger sities. So, just thinking out loud here, if a Federal prosecutor takes up a case close to home, it will more probably involve a Democrat.

Well - the authors have no data for the Clinton years or earlier, so any "explanation" is speculation.

YET MORE: On the subject of junk social science - the preliminary results of this "study" are presented at E Pluribus Media, on on-line venture founded two years ago by some Daily Kos readers energized by the Jeff Gannon debacle (an oldy but goody with more than you could want to know about Gannon here. Gosh, that was fun, though.)

OK, so it is a lefty agit-prop site, fine. Please don't pass it off as a site for serious academic research.

And a Point to Ponder - those links from Kos really give the E Pluribus "research" a Google boost. Right now when I Google on "Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan", the Stubborn Facts rebuttal is on page 2.

And this search - "shields cragan department of justice" - currently has the rebuttal on page 2.

I won't even begin to tell you how we got there, but I was having a chat about life on Death Row, and, more specifically, what the suitable menu might be for a hypothetical Last Meal. One person went on about filet mignon, bearnaise sauce, apple pie (but vanilla or coffee ice cream? I say it has to be vanilla...), and so on.

To which another participant said "All I know is, my last meal won't be Chinese, because I'll just be hungry later."

Adam Nagourney of the Times takes us to Iowa, where potential Republican caucusers are dragging Rep candidates to the right on immigration reform:

DES MOINES, March 17 — Immigration, an issue that has divided Republicans in Washington, is reverberating across the party’s presidential campaign field, causing particular complications for Senator John McCain of Arizona.

The topic came up repeatedly in recent campaign swings through Iowa by Mr. McCain and Senator Sam Brownback
of Kansas, another Republican who, like Mr. McCain, supports giving
some illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, a position that puts
them at odds with many other conservatives. Both candidates faced
intensive questioning from voters on the issue, which has become more
prominent in the state as immigrants are playing a larger and
increasingly visible role in the economy and society.

“Immigration is probably a more powerful issue here than almost
anyplace that I’ve been,” Mr. McCain said after a stop in Cedar Falls.

As he left Iowa, Mr. McCain said he was reconsidering his views on how
the immigration law might be changed. He said he was open to
legislation that would require people who came to the United States
illegally to return home before applying for citizenship, a measure
proposed by Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana. Mr.
McCain has previously favored legislation that would allow most illegal
immigrants to become citizens without leaving the country.

My gut reaction to the forced round-trip is that it is a waste of effort whose most probable impacts will be reductions in compliance and public acceptance. However, I would love the proposal if I were a travel agent - maybe they can book group trips. But I digress...

On Saturday morning in Des Moines, Mr. Brownback stood for 30
minutes at a breakfast with Republicans as question after question —
without exception — was directed at an immigration system that Iowans
denounced as failing. “These people are stealing from us,” said Larry
Smith, a factory owner from Truro and a member of the central committee
of the state Republican Party.

Finally, Mr. Brownback, with a slight smile, inquired, “Any other topics that people want to talk about?”

“What are you going to do with illegal immigrants who come here and
become criminals?” demanded Jodi Wohlenhaus, a Republican homemaker who
lives outside Des Moines.

Pretty funny, as these campaign moments go.

An issue I have with this story is that I have a hard time believing it is only Republicans in Iowa who care about immigration. However, the entire coverage of the Dem situation is this - I added emphasis to help you spot it:

The debate on the campaign trail is both reflecting and feeding the
politics of the issue in Washington. President Bush and the two parties
in Congress have been engaged in a three-way negotiation that has
pitted demands from many conservatives to concentrate first on
improving border security against Mr. Bush’s call, backed by many
Democrats, for a guest worker program that could include a right for
some illegal workers to eventually get legal status.

The issue has become much more complicated as the presidential
campaign has gotten under way, exposing the Republicans in particular
to voters who are angry about what they see as porous borders, growing
demands from immigrants on the social welfare and education systems and
job losses that they link at least in part to a low-wage labor force
coming over the border.

See that little hint of problems on the Dem side? My guess is that they will be dragged to the right as well, but will the Times tell us? Surely that would have consequences in Washington if the Dem Senators all had to shift a bit.

My Bold Prediction - the Iowa winner will support a plan offering citizenship to any undocumented alien driving an ethanol-powered car.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus takes a longer look at Nagourney's shadings. This is interesting on the Pence Plane kabuki:

But the Pence Plan is a scam--a
fake compromise. Illegal immigrants would symbolically leave the
country only because their rapid readmission would be effectively
guaranteed by their U.S. employers. That's a huge advantage that
would-be immigrants who obeyed the law and stayed home will never get.
The dream of the "comprehensive" camp
is that their opponents--sorry, the "anti-immgration" forces--can be
conned into accepting the Pence proposal as a "compromise." (It's "a
way we can get some stuff," says McCain.) Nagourney keeps that dream
alive by presenting Pence's scheme as an embarrassing cave-to-the-base
concession by McCain.

My high hopes for a Plame post have collapsed, along with my time management. However, this WaPo story telling us that Fitzgerald was not viewed in the top rank by the Admin will get play.

For myself, since Fitzgerald did not really investigate the leak and abetted chicanery by Tim Russert (and very probably engaged in some himself), I can't say I am outraged. Of course, I can't compare him to other US attorney and some of this only came out following the 2005 ranking, so I can't comment on the process used at DoJ. On the other hand, the public perception of Fitzgerald may be distorted by the reluctance of the media to name him when reporting on his mistakes.

BRAIN-DUMP: There was some amusing commentary [links? - I am thinking of Digby and fdl] about Brit Hume's suggestion that Ms. Plame was less than truthful in her denial on Friday of any role in suggesting or recommending her husband for his 2002 Niger trip (the fact that she recommended him for his 1999 Niger trip seems to be uncontested).

As to the background, I would note this post; point 1 is "Was Valerie involved in sending Joe?"; I would find a link to Byron York's exchange with Sen. Bond re the SSCI testimony of Ms. Plame's colleague; and since the left and the press seems to be having a failure of imagination, I would offer these suggestions as to why Ms. Plame might be inclined to, hmm, shade her story a bit:

1. Protect her movie deal and book deal;

2. Protect her (long-shot) civil suit;

3. Protect her husband's reputation, given his many past denials of her role;

4. It's a free throw (mandatory March Madness metaphor) - Ms. Plame is a media and democratic darling, so Chairman Waxman would never burden her with a perjury charge, or even such an allegation (not to mention the absurdity of perjury charges in this context and obvious materiality issues, since Joe's trip was hardly the subject of the hearing) ;

5. Where's the paperwork? There really are nepotism issues here, and the CIA file with the relevant paperwork noting the spousal connection might be a bit light - better for all to deny her role.

6. Placate the Senate - the unanimous portion of the SSCI criticized the CIA for sending an employee's spouse (see ERRATA below); they had an obvious problem that Joe Wilson seemed to know more classified info than he should have, yet no one would 'fess up to having, ahh, over-briefed him. That criticism is even more trenchant if Ms. Plame led the charge to get him the job, as Grenier believed. Kevin Drum noted the potential problems in this old post which suggested Joe changed his view of Iraqi WMDs as Val updated him on CIA assessments. Wow.

Do any or all of these possible motives fit, and is Ms. Plame lying? How could I possibly know - what, now I'm a human lie detector? But let's say that Ms. Plame is not inside the circle of trust.

Well, the good new is, I am no longer late with the rest of my life - I am hopelessly late.

The Committee does not fault the CIA for exploiting the access
enjoyed by the spouse of a CIA employee traveling to Niger. The
Committee believes, however, that it is unfortunate, considering the
significant resources available to the CIA, that this was the only
option available.

In an interview with TIME, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon
and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current
president's father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with
his trip to Africa. "That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the
case," Wilson told TIME. "I met with between six and eight analysts and
operators from CIA and elsewhere [before the Feb 2002 trip]. None of
the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to
send me. This is a smear job."

Nothing to do with it! I wish I could find the comic follow-up in TIME from a year or two later (possibly following the release of the SSCI report and Wilson's separation from the Kerry campaign) - IIRC, they basically asked Joe Wilson whether his wife was involved and then didn't even bother to wait for his denial - he waved weakly, the reporter laughed, something like that. OK, I'm sure the reporter didn't *admit* to laughing, but I did...

[Check the attic! The link has dies but this excerpt lives on in the exhaustive and exhausting JOM archives:

That
means Wilson was also shading the story: "Valerie had nothing to do
with the matter," he wrote in his 2004 book The Politics of Truth. "She
definitely had not proposed that I make the trip." When asked last week
by TIME if he still denies that she was the origin of his involvement
in the trip, he avoided answering. But he has maintained all along that
Administration officials conducted a "smear job" on him and outed his
wife in revenge.

And since the gingko-bilboa has kicked in briefly, let me toss out the idea that Gregory Djerejian had a long roster of Wilsonian denials of spousal involvement. Or maybe Beldar. It would be fun to find it; the time would have been right after the Senate report in July 2004, and the author was trying to goad Josh Marshall into reacting (IIRC, but that last bit is a stretch - however, Marshall had presented some original interviews with Wilson, so he did have a possible proprietary interest in giving us a follow-up on his source's credibility and his own credulity.) Well, that was two and a half years ago.

March 18, 2007

Let me kick off yet another Plame thread with a stray thought that amused, if not enlightened me - Matt Cooper played a larger and stranger role in this case than is commonly recognized.

Think about the circumstances that led to the Ashcroft recusal - per Waas, the FBI did not like Libby's story at all (and we now know that Russert had contradicted a key part of it.)

However! The FBI also did not like Rove's story about his contact with Novak - who, after all, could take seriously the notion that "I heard that, too" could have been taken as a confirmation by Novak, as Rove claimed. And since there had been a flurry (Flurry? Blizzard? Light misting? Check the weather...) of phone calls between Rove and Novak when the criminal referral was announced, well...

But as I noted when the Waas piece came out, Matt Cooper's testimony about how Libby "confirmed" the Plame leak to him with "I heard that, too" (or words to that effect) must have caused a bit of head-shaking amongst the journalism critics at the FBI; anyway, it undoubtedly took pressure off of Rove, for a while.

Eventually, the story of the Rove-Cooper interaction had Karl dangling over the cliff again, and here we are.

And do we have any reason at all to care? Not really. But Matt Cooper did allude to David Gregory's situation while chatting with him on Hardball, so we eagerly await the possibility that Mr. Cooper's role will enlarge in this.

MORE: C'mon, sources! From Waas:

Although the FBI had not yet been able to interview any of the
journalists -- Russert, Cooper, or Miller -- they were skeptical of
Libby's account, sources said.

So who is the source covering for Russert (the story is dated June 8, 2006) - what are the odds it was someone from the defense team? Odds it was Eckenrode of the FBI, or someone else from the FBI?

MORE STRAY THOUGHTS: "He’s absolutely apoplectic about it." Some Seymour Hersh source (possibly even a reliable one) describing Colin Powell's reaction to the news break about the Niger forgeries. Well, if Powell was apoplectic about the news that the CIA missed the forgeries, maybe that provided an impetus for Armitage to invite Novak in for a chat in June 2003. They eventually met on July 8 and Amritage leaked the Plame news, presumably as part of a chat about the whole Niger intel debacle.

Patterico helps people think about the difference between San Diego and Los Angeles:

Democrats have been alleging that the Bush Administration targeted
Carol Lam because she was investigating Republican Congressman Jerry
Lewis (the only Republican Congressman, by the way, who is popular in France). The thing is, she wasn’t.

Despite what many appear to assume, Lam wasn’t the U.S. Attorney responsible for investigating Lewis. The U.S. Attorney responsible for the Lewis investigation was Debra Yang in Los Angeles.

If you follow the links at the TPM timeline you will find the same point, subtly:

May 11, 2006:

The LA Timesreports
that the investigation of Cunningham has expanded to include
Representative Jerry Lewis (R-CA), House Appropriations Committee
Chairman.

And the linked article says this, with emphasis added:

Federal prosecutors have begun an
investigation into Rep. Jerry Lewis, the Californian who chairs the
powerful House Appropriations Committee, government officials and
others said, signaling the spread of a San Diego corruption probe.

The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles has issued subpoenas in
an investigation into the relationship between Lewis (R-Redlands) and a
Washington lobbyist linked to disgraced former Rep. Randy "Duke"
Cunningham (R-Rancho Santa Fe), three people familiar with the
investigation said....

Would a presumably ambitious prosecutor in Los Angeles hand over the case to San Diego after doing the spadework? Sure, maybe the cases could have been consolidated at some point down the road, but who thinks that LA would let their case die if Lam's presumably pliable replacement dropped it?

Waxman says that he is going to hold the record open, and check
Toensing's statements on the record. Waxman says he will be checking
with Fitzgerald on his interpretation of the law. [CHS asks: Is it
me, or is that a "correct the record, or there may be a perjury
question in the offing if we find errors in your testimony?"]

A perjury charge against an expert witness for expressing the same view of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act that she presented in op-eds and court filings (15 page word file)? Is it me, or is that ridiculous?

LET THE RECORD NOTE: My current official editorial position on Ms. Plame's status is that this element of the statute has not been tested in court, briefs have not been filed, no judge has ruled, and we just don't "know". However, I think the weight of history favors Ms. Toensing (and snippets of that history are in the "More On The IIPA" portion of this post).

MORE: Why so negative? If expert witnesses can be nailed for perjury for offering their view, maybe we can call back all the economists who testified over the years...

LEST I FORGET - I ought to hat tip pgl of The Angry Bear, with whom I have a gloomypersonalhistory. His habit of posting on topics about which he knows nothing and then being rude about his own ignorance sort of irks me. Go figure.

So why didn’t Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel investigating the “leak,” close up shop long ago?

One possible answer is that someone lied about a material fact
when testifying before the grand jury or obstructed justice in some
other way. If that is the case, the prosecutor should indict.

Well, it would include that if the link worked - try the Google cache. For search purposes the excerpted text is fine, but the title is "The White House’s Legal Katrina" by Victoria Toensing, Posted: 10/18/2005.

Ms. Plame does just flit about - we like this from her testimony yesterday (now available at Raw Story and Flares Into Darkness. She is discussing her presence at an ealry May 2003 breakfast meeting between her husband and Joe Wilson where Joe spilled details about his classified trip to Niger, thereby inspiring this May 6 Kristof column:

REP. DAVIS: Let me just ask, try to put some -- some of the press
speculation to rest and give you an opportunity to answer. In January
2004, Vanity Fair published an article -- not always known for great
accuracy -- touching on your role in the Niger uranium affair. It said
-- this was what they said -- "In early May, Wilson and Plame attended
a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee at
which Wilson spoke about Iraq. One of the other panelists was New York
Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. Over breakfast the next morning with
Kristof and his wife, Wilson told about his trip to Niger and said
Kristof could write about it but not name him." Is that account
accurate?

MS. PLAME WILSON: I think it is. I had nothing -- I was not speaking
to Mr. Kristof. And I think my husband did say that he had undertaken
this trip, but not to be named as a source.

REP. DAVIS: Okay.

Just to be clear, when your -- the article says that -- says your
husband "met for breakfast with Kristof and his wife." Just to be
clear, were you at the breakfast?

MS. PLAME WILSON: Briefly, yes, Congressman.

Well, it was brief. CIA officers are meant to report contacts with the press, as well as unauthorized disclosures of classified information, but since she was only there "briefly", I guess it is OK. And yes, someone had forgotten to ask Joe to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but that does not mean his trip was de-classified - he may not have been breaking his contract with the CIA, but she was ignoring the rules of her employment.

Well, that will be glossed over in the movie - maybe while Joe and Nick chat, she will step into the hotel lobby to overpower a terrorist.

And on the now-burning question of why the White House internal security group did not conduct a leak investigation in parrallel with the FBI, or in place of the FBI, or after the FBI - please. Democrats would have gone ballistic if White House investigators had gotten involved - they were beside themselves that the White House Counsel's office was coordinating compliance with DoJ document requests. Here is Smilin' Chuck Schumer from Oct 2003:

The counsel's office routinely acted as the gatekeeper for such
document requests in investigations into the Clinton administration.
But Democrats said they were concerned that the arrangement left the
White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, with undue control over
potential evidence in a politically charged case.

''I am very
troubled by the fact that the White House counsel seems to be a
gatekeeper, and I want to know what precautions Justice is taking to
ensure that it gets all relevant information from the administration,''
said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

Or here is a Fox link to a related story from Oct 2003, which includes this "I'll be darned" headscratcher: "Novak said that his source was not in the White House." When did he say that, and how did we all miss it lo these many years? Or did we not miss it - am I having a total Libby moment here?

March 16, 2007

Nagging at me - did the Times/WaPo/APp even mention that Ms. Plame is engaged in a civil suit against the objects of her testimony? Does anyone else think that maybe that gives her a bit of an incentive to shade her testimony?

I think the suit gets tossed, but she also needs to testify to promote her book and movie.

OK, I had a brilliant insight, but its gone.

Let me start it up - if that was Waxman's idea of an a**-kicking, I volunteer for one a day and two on Saturday - he brought nothing.

Was Ms. Plame covert - anyone who follows the case knows he waltzed around that.

Was Ms. Plame involved in sending Joe? Her version was laughable, but let me steal a re-phrasing of it:

Rove and Miers discuss firing 93 US attorneys.

Rove and Miers than bring the idea to Bush; Bush asks Rove to send an email to DoJ.

Rove then invites the DoJ rep to the White House for a meeting, and introduces him at the meeting.

Can we all agree that Rove was not involved in the process? Please.

Last Bit - this three-part series (1, 2, 3) on the Plame debacle from an upstate NY paper was great. I'm sure I can find a few flaws, but I love the fighting spirit

Really Last Bit - the new attack theme, that Bush never had his security team investigate, is more comic gold. IF the White House security team had been overlapping with the FBI investigation, Waxman would have screamed about obstruction and cover-up and insisted that the White House stand back and let the pros do it. Well, if the other side is scraping that far under the barrel, they must be suffering. As a bit of nostalgia, this old post from Oct 2003 is close to the point; this old story with Chuck Schumer squawking that the White House counsel was coordinating compliance with the DoJ document request is also on point:

"I
am very troubled by the fact that the White House counsel seems to be a
gatekeeper, and I want to know what precautions Justice is taking to
ensure that it gets all relevant information from the administration,"
said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

At least one Democratic lawmaker expressed misgivings about the process.

See, he would not have been troubled if the White House had announced that their internal security team was running the investigation. Oh, not at all.

Okay, can we finally get rid of one of the Libby Lobby's key talking
points--that Valerie Plame Wilson was not an undercover CIA employee?
This should be one outcome of the House oversight and government reform
committee hearing on Friday, at which Valerie Wilson spoke for the
first time at length about the leak case.

Kidding? I'm still waiting even for Waxman to tell me the opinion of the CIA Counsel as to whether she had "covert" status under the IIPA. Still waiting...

As to whether she had classified status - Fitzgerald said so in October 2005 when he indicted Libby - I don't have any reason to doubt him, but we all know that "classified" is not the end of the story.

Corn also semi-addresses the question of whether Valerie was involved in sending Joe without ever mentioning the trial testimony of Grenier or Martin (who described her information from CIA press flack Bill Harlow.) Weak and dishonest. But a hero to the left!

I have been advised by the CIA that even now, after all that has happened, I cannot disclose the full nature, scope, and character of Ms. 'Wilson's service to our nation without causing serious damage to our national security interests.

But General Hayden and the CIA have cleared these following comments for today's hearing.

During her employment at the CIA, Ms. Wilson was under cover.

Her employment status with the CIA was classified information prohibited from disclosure under Executive Order 12958.

At the time of the publication of Robert Novak's column on July 14, 2003, Ms. Wilson's CIA employment status was covert.

This was classified information.

First, I want a special counsel to indict Waxman for perjury - the relevant Executive Order is 13292, which amended and supplanted 12958 in March 2003, and which was effective immediately (except for section 1.6, related to markings - what are the odds the violation to which he refers is there? Groan. I want a lawyer...).

But before we take Mr. Waxman away in chains, let's talk about his statement. The magic words we are all listening for are "Ms. Plame had covert status under the law as defined by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act." His failure to speak those words speaks volumes - I have no doubt he will gull the NY Times (Mission Accomplished - see below), but folks in the know will see this for the smokescreen it is.

Please - don't tell me that there would have been vast national security implications if he had said "CIA lawyers who have studied her file have assured me that Ms. Plame had covert status under the IIPA". There would have been no national security implications to his saying it, it would have strengthened his presentation to say it, yet he did not say it - what reasonable conclusion might one draw?

Telling us that the CIA considered her to be covert as per their employment practices is smoke - the WaPo understood this point this morning (but the Times never will).

From the other side, let me thank an emailer and single out this Kos diarist, a lawyer whose entire contribution to the debate seems to have been the nicknaming of Ms. Toensing as "Toestink". Beyond that contribution, the writer does not make a single point not made roughly two or three years ago. Move On, please - say something new.

And I'll even help - just for starters, tell me why I should give zero weight to this definiton of "service abroad":

Matt Apuzzo of the AP deserves the props we gave him - this story seems to hit the key controversies and presents both sides. Here we go:

(1) Was Valerie involved in sending Joe?

"I did not recommend him. I did not suggest him. There was no nepotism involved. I did not have the authority," she said.

That
conflicts with senior officials at the CIA and State Department, who
testified during Libby's trial that Plame recommended Wilson for the
trip.

Yes, it does conflict - here is Grenier of the CIA, as liveblogged by Joyner and Wheeler.

Or here is Special Counsel Fitzgerald's indictment, point 7. And let's note that I am setting to one side the State Department people who also thought Ms. Wilson was behind the trip because they may have been misinformed.

Finally, John Podhoretz provides a funny bit of testimony telling us that, although she did not recommend her hubby for the 2002 Niger trip, Ms. Wilson went to her boss accompanied by the man who did, talked to her hubby about the assignment, and wrote the recommending email. She also (per the SSCI) had recommended her hubby for his 1999 trip to Niger. So please pardon our confusion about her obvious non-involvement here. (And how will this be treated in the movie? Will Val be dragged into her boss's office at gunpoint? Or depending on how they want to position the film, the producer could have the CIA waterboard her into giving up her husband's name - good looking woman, bondage, water everywhere... just thinking out loud and trying to help. TGIF.) [And here is Byron York double-checking with Sen. Bond that the Senate Intel Committee stands by its story.]

(2) Was Ms. Plame covert?

From Matt Apuzzo:

Plame also repeatedly described herself as a covert operative, a
term that has multiple meanings. Plame said she worked undercover and
traveled abroad on secret missions for the CIA.

But the word
"covert" also has a legal definition requiring recent foreign service
and active efforts to keep someone's identity secret. Critics of
Fitzgerald's investigation said Plame did not meet that definition for
several reasons and said that's why nobody was charged with the leak.

Also,
none of the witnesses who testified at Libby's trial said it was clear
that Plame's job was classified. However, Fitzgerald said flatly at the
courthouse after the verdict that Plame's job was classified.

...

Plame said she wasn't a lawyer and didn't know what her legal status
was but said it shouldn't have mattered to the officials who learned
her identity.

"They all knew that I worked with the CIA," Plame
said. "They might not have known what my status was but that alone -
the fact that I worked for the CIA - should have put up a red flag."

She didn't know her legal status? She's so covert that not even she knows if she is legally covert! And we are more than three years into this. Oh, my - well, I don't know her status either. Maybe they call her the wind. (But they call the wind Mariah...)

In the CIA's eyes, the revelation of Plame's name in any context,
whether she was stationed here or abroad, gave away a national security
secret that could have dangerous repercussions. When Novak's column
unmasking her as a CIA operative was published on July 14, 2003, the
CIA general counsel's office automatically sent a routine report to the
Justice Department that there had been an unauthorized disclosure of
classified information.

As part of normal procedures, the agency
made a preliminary damage assessment and then sent a required follow-up
report to Justice. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft decided to open
a criminal investigation but three months later recused himself because
the probe led into the White House. Patrick J. Fitgerald, the U.S.
attorney for northern Illinois, became special counsel and began to
investigate "the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's
identity."

In February 2004, after reviewing what the FBI had,
Fitzgerald widened his investigation to include "any federal criminal
laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure," plus
any efforts to obstruct the probe.

* * *

Some news stories
created initial confusion over Plame's status by suggesting that
disclosure of her name and employment may have violated the
Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. That law, passed in
response to disclosure of the names of CIA officers serving overseas by
former CIA employee Philip Agee, made it a crime to disclose the names
of "covert agents," which the act narrowly defined as those serving
overseas or who had served as such in the previous five years.

"Covert
agent" is not a label actually used within the agency for its
employees, according to former senior CIA officials. Plame, who joined
the agency right out of Pennsylvania State University, underwent
rigorous spycraft training to become an officer in the Directorate of
Operations. (The term "agent" in the CIA is only applied to foreign
nationals recruited to spy in support of U.S. interests.)

It is funny watching CREW try to lower the bar:

Plame's testimony today "will be very forceful and clear, and there
won't be any question what classified means," said Anne Weismann, chief
counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington...

No, there probably won't be any questions about "classified", since the key question is whether she was "covert" under the statute.

Let give some props to Rep. Tom Davis:

Rep. Tom Davis,
the ranking Republican on the committee, said, "No process can be
adopted to protect classified information that no one knows is
classified. This looks to me more like a CIA problem than a White House
problem."

Well, if this was a good day for the Wilso-philes, what would a bad day look like? I guess we need to see how the WaPo, Times, and LA Times spin it. But keep hope alive! The press did join in the suit arguing that there was no underlying crime, so there is at least a chance that some of the editors and reporters have apprised themselves of the issues. But forget about the columnists.

Ms. Wilson told the committee that, despite what has been written
and said repeatedly, she did not recommend her husband for the trip to
Africa. In fact, she said, she had unhappy visions “of myself at
bedtime with a couple of two-year-olds” to handle alone if her husband
went overseas. (The Wilsons have young twins.)

“I did not recommend him, I did not suggest him, there was no nepotism involved,” she said. “I did not have the authority.”

Ms.
Wilson said she did sound out her husband about the trip after she was
asked to do so, but that her husband was picked for the trip because of
his background in Africa.

Nothing mentioning the trial testimony or the indictment.

Grade: F

(2) Was Ms. Plame covert? The closeet they come to acknowledging a controversy is this:

Soon afterward, Ms. Wilson was unmasked by Mr. Novak. That incident led
to an investigation to find who had leaked her name, possibly in
violation of the law.

Grade: Are you kidding? F.

And under "Random Noise" we will note this:

Administration critics have long asserted that Ms. Wilson’s name was
leaked to intimidate others who differed with the White House.

Administration critics have long asserted many things. But did the Libby trial provide evidence that intimidating critics (or punishing Wilson) was the motive?

Just for instance, Richard Armitage of State leaked the Plame info to both Bob Woodward and Bob Novak. Would a reasonable reader conclude from the transcript that he was hoping to intimidate critics?

Did Karl Rove hope to intimidate critics by saying "I heard that, too" to Bob Novak (who was confirming the story he got from Armitage)?

Here is what Walter Pincus speculated about the motive of Ari Fleischer, who Pincus has said was his source:

I wrote my October story because I did not think the person who spoke
to me was committing a criminal act, but only practicing damage control
by trying to get me to stop writing about Wilson.

Well. If the new Times policy is to free-associate and print random speculation, they might try telling their readers that:

(a) Joe Wilson's critics think that his wife was involved, in some fashion, in sending him to Niger. As Libby said in his grand jury testimony, the implication is that Wilson is not an impartial judge of the White House - CIA intel dispute, a point which the press should have noted.

(b) Valerie Wilson did not have "covert" status as defined by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. A reasonable special counsel would have at least disclosed that to the court and clarified that he was simply looking for perjury charges before having a reporter locked up for 85 days.

A new Gallup Poll reports on a Libby pardon and offers a ray of sunshine to The Few, The Proud that eagerly await a Libby pardon:

Americans 3-to-1 Against a Libby Pardon

...Sixty-seven percent say George W. Bush should not pardon Libby, while only 21% believe he should.

No
major subgroup shows majority support for a pardon. Republicans (34%),
though, are more likely than independents (21%) and Democrats (11%) to
favor one.

Wait, that's not the sunshine - here we go:

The poll finds that those who are paying the closest attention to the trial are most likely to support a pardon, at 44%.

This finding is not because of underlying partisan differences in the
likelihood of following the trial, as 45% of both Democrats and
Republicans report following the trial closely. Rather, it appears that
a substantial proportion of those familiar with the specifics of the
trial may believe that Libby was treated unfairly enough to justify a
pardon. For example, some have suggested that the special prosecutor
made Libby a "fall guy" for the White House in the investigation. Those
who are not familiar with the specifics of the case are more likely
responding to the general notion that persons convicted of crimes do
not deserve the special treatment a pardon imparts.

Just glancing at the data (excerpted below) I will declare that among folks following the case we have battled to a statistical draw. That is not a victory, but among the cognoscenti, we are hardly The Few.

“I think the attorney general is going to have to explain himself
because this has cast a cloud over the department,” said Senator Jeff
Sessions, Republican of Alabama, before the latest disclosures. “How
much is justified? I don’t know. But it has cast a cloud there.”

Combined with the cloud over Dick Cheney and the White House identified by Special Counsel Fitzgerald, the sun may never shine on Washington again.

March 15, 2007

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid prognosticates for the press in anticipation of a vote on the Iraq war resolution offered by the Democrats:

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned that Republicans
were playing a dangerous game if they had allowed the debate to go
forward feeling completely confident they would be able to stop the
measure.

"They may wind up with a surprise," Reid, a Nevada Democrat,
told reporters. "More Republicans than they think may wind up being
in favour of this."

Predictions are always dangerous, especially about the future - the final vote was 50 opposed, 48 in favor:

Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon was the only Republican to support the
measure. Democrats Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska
opposed it, as did Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent
Democrat.

Mark S. Zaid is the Managing Partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Krieger & Zaid, PLLC and specializes in litigation and lobbying on matters relating to international transactions, torts and crimes, national security, foreign sovereign and diplomatic immunity, defamation (plaintiff) and the Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts (FOI/PA).

Through his practice Mr. Zaid
often represents former/current federal employees, intelligence
officers, Whistleblowers and others who have grievances or have
been wronged by agencies of the United States Government or foreign
governments, as well as members of the media. He has participated
in cases against or involving the Central Intelligence Agency,
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency,
the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Departments of Defense, Health
& Human Services, Justice and State, the Marshal's Service,
Secret Service, Library of Congress, Taiwan, Mexico, Macedonia,
the Government of Libya, and the Republic of Georgia.

Presumably he has been retained by the Wilsons, which means we should have seen his name on earlier civil suit filings. Or maybe he is an impartial expert.

Did he or didn't he? David Gregory has yet to address the question raised at the Libby trial, but his excuse is coming together.

Ari Fleischer,a key prosecution witness, says he leaked to John Dickerson and David Gregory on July 11 during the President's trip to Africa; seeing as how Libby got convicted in part on the basis of his testimony, it would be sort of a downer for Gregory to tell the world that Fleischer's memory of who said what to whom that week is a bit suspect (however, John Dickerson and Walter Pincus both contradicted elements of Ari's story, so why not Gregory as well?)

Then again, key prosecution witness Tim Russert testified that if Gregory had found out he would have alerted the NBC newsroom - geez, it would be a bummer to contradict Tim, wouldn't it? Especially since Russert is head of the Washington Bureau and Gregory's boss.

So here we sit in silence, and isn't it great to see our media push for the truth on this story?

Oh, well - the building blocks for my Bold Prediction are being assembled. First, the prediction, from March 8 (or Feb 25):

Gregory will say it was a long trip, he was
hopped up or grogged out on Sudafed and Ambien, and he just doesn't
know.

If you asked the producers of Nightly News (and we did) how many
occasionally rely on sleeping pills, far more than a few (try 99%)
would say they indulge. A lot of us don't think it is indulgence, but
rather necessity.

Well, if the producers use sleeping pills, mightn't the reporters, especially on a hectic trip?

The most widely prescribed sleeping pills can cause strange behavior like driving and eating while asleep, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday, announcing that strong new warnings will be placed on the labels of 13 drugs.

The review was prompted, in part, by queries to the agency from The New York Times
last year, after some users of the most widely prescribed drug, Ambien,
started complaining online and to their doctors about unusual reactions
ranging from fairly benign sleepwalking episodes to hallucinations,
violent outbursts, nocturnal binge eating and — most troubling of all —
driving while asleep.

Night eaters said they woke up to find
Tostitos and Snickers wrappers in their beds, missing food, kitchen
counters overflowing with flour from baking sprees, and even lighted
stoves.

No reports of waking up to find a press secretary babbling in your face about somebody's wife, but let's give Mr. Gregory a chance to marshall his facts - it's only been seven weeks now since his role was revealed. David Gregory told Don Imus he would be free to speak after the trial, but that is only nine days past.